by Dr Steve McCabe

The Scotish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) exists to ‘provide a free, independent and impartial complaints handling service for complaints about public services in Scotland’. Their vision is to be ‘a world-leading, innovative, accessible and trusted organisation that promotes best practice, learning and improvement’.

Of the cases that SPSO takes to full investigation about two thirds relate to healthcare – a total of 507 cases in 2016- 17. This then begs the obvious question – why do people complain?

The common presumption amongst many who work in the health service is that complainants are simply after monetary rewards. But that presumption is misplaced. In reality the reasons are much more complicated than that and the evidence suggests, that in the initial stages at least, financial compensation is not even on the agenda in most cases.

And research also shows it’s not really about who did what. Rather it’s about recognising someone has been let down and gaining an understanding of what happened and why and how it is being addressed. Even more importantly it’s about trying to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again. But most fundamentally it’s about getting a meaningful apology which needs someone to say sorry.